


your ass, it haunts me

by bazzystar



Series: The Brooklyn Avengers [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics), Young Avengers
Genre: Brooklyn Avengers, Fluff, Friendship, Ghosts, Haunting, M/M, Nonsense, Scooby-Doo nonsense TBH, garden au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 12:46:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7640758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bazzystar/pseuds/bazzystar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky brings home a haunted armchair. Things get very silly very quickly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. well, I don't know what I expected

Bucky is sitting in the chair when Steve comes home.

It is Tuesday afternoon; he is watching _The Great British Bake-Off_. Everything is as usual, except - the chair. _We haven’t always had a chair there_ , he thinks as he puts his keys on the little table by the door. _Have we?_

As if hearing his thoughts, Bucky looks up and flashes him a heart-stopping grin. “Do you like it?” He wiggles his feet, kicked out on the extended footrest. “I love it.” He rocks back against the chair, forcing it to recline further, and motions for Steve to come sit in his lap. Steve wants to, he really does, but -

“Where did it come from?”

He’s trying to imagine Bucky shopping for a chair. Paying for a chair in cash. Bringing the chair home on - his bike? The subway?

Bucky’s smile widens, and he says, “You’ll never believe.”

_Uh-oh._

“It was just sitting on the sidewalk! It was completely free. The future is not all bad.”

Steve shuts his eyes. He is debating whether to lead with bedbugs or mold spores when he has another, more terrifying thought.

“Buck. How did you know it was free? Did you - you didn’t - was someone _moving_ -”

Bucky laughs delightedly. “I didn’t steal someone’s furniture, you jerk. There was a sign. They very much wanted it gone.”

Steve says, “What do you mean, they _very much_ wanted it gone?”

Bucky’s eyes flick back to the TV and he murmurs, “That fondant’s not setting right,” about a fraction of a second before the man on the television says the same thing.

Steve says, “Buck.”

Bucky jerks a thumb over his shoulder at the hallway into the kitchen. “Look at the sign.”

He walks into the kitchen and sees a cardboard corner, peeking out from where Bucky has tucked it behind the recycling bin. He feels a goofy surge of love for him, the small conscientious things he does, the fact that he brought home a fucking velour-upholstered chair that he found on the street. The future is not all bad.

He pulls the sign out from behind the bin.

FREE, it says in bubble letters. Sparkly bubble letters. So far, so good.

HAUNTED CHAIR.

Also in bubble letters. Like it’s a fun thing.

GHOST INCLUDED (WE HOPE).

He stands there staring at the sign like it’s going to suddenly speak to him, start making sense, and Bucky calls from the other room:

“Right?”

He walks back into the living room in a bit of a daze, and there it is. The chair. The _haunted_ chair, sitting there underneath his boyfriend, glaring at him in all its purple, plushy glory.

“What…” Steve trails off, gesturing feebly with the sign.

Bucky grins ferociously, raises his eyebrows. “Were you gonna say ‘what possessed you’?”

He has to laugh, a little. “I was.”

“The spirit of the chair,” Bucky intones dramatically. “They say a man died in this chair centuries ago.”

“Did they actually say that?” Steve winces at the sharp note of curiosity - verging on panic - in his voice.

Bucky catches it. Of course he does. He folds the footrest in, leans forward and hooks a finger through one of Steve’s belt loops.

“Stevie. Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Don’t call me - no, I don’t - I just-” He snaps his mouth shut, trying to save what little dignity he has left. Bucky is doing his level best not to laugh, his mouth pressed into a tight line as he regards Steve with what he thinks is a serious expression.

“I don’t _believe in ghosts_ ,” he says at last, too forcefully. Bucky’s face does some strange things as he fights for control. “I just… I mean, why invite the… the… why invite it into your life?”

Bucky is kneading Steve’s hipbone with his thumb, which isn’t helping him form sentences.

“How did I not know this about you?” he muses, looking up at him. “Didn’t we go to that haunted house at Coney Island?”

Steve sighs. “Eyes shut the whole time.”

Bucky barks out a laugh, his dark eyes dancing. “Is that why you held onto me the whole way through?”

“Sure,” Steve says. “That, and I could feel your back muscles through your shirt.”

Bucky’s eyes get a little darker then, and he pulls Steve closer, bringing his other hand up to his waist. “Still can’t believe you never said anything.”

He kisses him just below the hem of his t-shirt, then slides his hands to the backs of Steve’s thighs and pulls him down onto the chair. Steve sinks into it for a moment, leans in and kisses Bucky soft and deep, and then his brain yelps _haunted chair_ and he pushes away so fast that he rolls straight over the armrest onto the floor. Bucky leans over the side of the chair and pouts.

“The best way to get over your fear is to have sex on it,” he wheedles. “That’s what they always say.”

"I am _not_ ," says Steve, as haughtily as he can from the floor, “ _afraid_ of the _chair_.” He gets to his feet, carefully not using the chair as leverage. “I just - have to -” He gestures in the direction of the kitchen, then changes his mind and waffles toward the bedroom.. “I’m - um -”

Then, a stroke of genius. “Nat needs help.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “With what?”

 _Shit_. “Um,” he says, and then before he can think too hard about it he crosses the room and leaves the apartment.

He can hear Bucky’s laugh all the way through the door.

* * *

“A haunted chair.”

Sam’s voice sounds the way it always does when he talks to or about Bucky - a strangely parental mix of resignation, fraying patience, and somehow-affectionate rage. “I can’t say I’m surprised, but Cap, what’s the big deal? I mean, I understand the bug concern, but I feel like you’re leaning pretty hard on the haunted part. That could just be me, but-”

Steve sighs into his phone. “No, it’s not. I don’t know, Sam. I don’t think I really believe that it’s haunted, but I don’t… it makes me feel uneasy, knowing that someone thought it was.”

“Maybe you gotta talk to those people,” Sam says. “Find ‘em and ask why they decided to get rid of it. Maybe it was just a cute sign, something to catch the eye. Appeal to the hipsters.”

He sighs again. “Don’t say the word ‘hipster’ to me.”  

“I’m just saying. People in Brooklyn are weird-”

“- _ahem_ -”

“-and they might have thought that would appeal to some people. Like, ‘Ooh, a haunted chair, let’s take it home.’”

He has a point, which Steve will never admit. He can see Kate saying something along those exact lines, clapping her hands gleefully. Plus, the damn thing is purple. Maybe he can just get her to take it, now that he thinks about it-

“Cap,” Sam says into his ear.

“Sorry, Sam. Do you think Kate wants a chair?”

“ _Do not_ give that child a haunted chair, Steve Rogers. It’s bad enough she has Barton for a mentor. If she gets possessed on top of that-”

“Fine,” he huffs. “She would love it, though.”

“Yeah, but you won’t love it when Barton crashes on your couch for the rest of his life because her head’s spinning around like a top.”

He actually stops walking at that point. “What?”

There is a loud crackling sigh of exasperation. “ _The Exorcist_ , Steve. You haven’t seen _The Exorcist_?”

He digs his notebook out of his pocket, flips through it. “It’s on the list, actually. But it’s behind - mmm - something called _Back to the Future_ and something that I think is music, maybe. What is ‘vanilla sky’? Wait, maybe it’s food, that sounds like food-”

“Who put _Vanilla Sky_ on that list? _Do not_ watch _Vanilla Sky_. Cross that out right now. Who did - who - why would you -”

Sam is sputtering at this point.

“It’s a movie, okay, good note. But you’re saying no _Vanilla Sky_.”

“I’m saying never, in this lifetime or any other. Never _Vanilla Sky_.”

“Nat’s not gonna be happy about that.”

“Yeah, not happy that her attempt to play a very cruel joke on you failed. Go home. Watch _The Exorcist._ Maybe that’ll convince Barnes to get rid of the chair.”

“All right, all right. Just this once. We can’t just skip around the list, Sam. I’ll never get through everything if I keep only picking stuff that seems interesting.”

“I’ll remind you of this conversation when we get to the late ‘90s.”

“Thanks, Sam. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

* * *

He leans against Bucky’s legs during the movie, very careful not to make contact with the chair. Bucky complains a little at first because he wants the footrest up, but he settles for trying to make Steve’s hair stand on end, running his fingers through it ceaselessly for the first half of the film. His hands drop away, down to Steve’s shoulders, as he leans toward the screen when Reagan starts speaking in the demon voice. “Cool,” he breathes.

Steve, meanwhile, is visualizing this exact scenario starring Bucky and himself, and he’s just not sure he can handle another trip to Bucky-not-being-Bucky-land. He elbows him in the shin. “It’s not cool,” he says testily. “It is a harrowing possibility.”

Bucky leans all the way forward at that, his face swooping in next to Steve’s.

“Are you worried I’m gonna get possessed? Is that what this is? I thought we weren’t skipping around the list anymore. Bad form, Stevie.”

He closes his eyes. “It’s not - Sam told me we should skip _Vanilla Sky._ We’re basically right on track.”

Bucky makes a disbelieving sound in his throat and leans back just a little, metal fingers kneading Steve’s neck. They watch the rest of the movie in a comfortable silence.

“So?” Steve says when it’s over. “What did you think?”

“Pretty good,” Bucky allows. “The stairs, when she came down, that was-” He purses his lips, raises his eyebrows. “Woof.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, getting to his feet. “I’m gonna order Chinese, what do you want?”

 He squints at his phone, composes a text to Sam. _He liked it._

 Bucky groans. “I want you to let me _cook_ , Rogers. If you tell me the day before I can actually _make_ anything you could order.”

 Blip. _Not scared?_

_Nah. It’s gonna take more than movies, I guess._

“I didn’t know I wanted Chinese food yesterday. What do you want?”

He gets only a wounded stare in response as he goes into the kitchen. He digs a menu out of the secret menu drawer, which is actually just a junk drawer that he hides takeout menus in, and flips it across the room into Bucky’s lap. “If you don’t pick something, I’ll pick for you.”

Blip. _Ugh. Assassins._

He sets the phone down. “Buck. Don’t make me get something with tofu.” A lot of the food of the future unsettles Bucky, and tofu is high on the list. _Why does it look like that, Steve? Why doesn’t it taste like anything, Steve? You shouldn’t have to put your food in a vise before you cook it, Steve!_

He scowls. “Fried rice. Like, a lot of it.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Even though I could make it myself in ten minutes if you’d just wait for me to go to the store.”

Steve stands in the doorway, arms folded, gazing at him. “By the time you get to the store I’ll be halfway through a container of shrimp.”

Bucky heaves a sigh. “Fine. Fine. I’ll just sit here and wait for the chair to possess me. You’ll wish you let me cook then.”

“Not funny,” Steve grumbles as he dials. Bucky just kicks the footrest out and smiles lazily at him. His stomach flips - those fucking _teeth_ \- and then the restaurant picks up and he fumbles his way through an order.

“You sure you don’t want to, uh, break this baby in?” Bucky asks, arching an eyebrow, rocking his hips a little. He knows how Steve feels about that smile. Steve puts the phone down on the counter and walks toward him slowly, purposefully, and then continues past him, into the bedroom.

 “Cruel,” Bucky calls after him. “Very cruel.”

 He comes into the room a moment later, though, looks at Steve lying on the bed and says, “We’ve got, what, ten minutes before the delivery guy shows up?”

Steve says, “Eh, give or take,” and then Bucky pounces on him.

 He slides a hand under Steve’s shirt, dragging his thumb down the ridges of his hipbones, touching him gently, lightly, fingers drifting across his skin like butterfly wings. He keeps his mouth just out of reach, lips brushing feather-light across Steve’s, the heat of his breath, the barest flick of his tongue before he pulls away. Steve says, “Oh no you don’t,” and reaches up.  He winds his hands into Bucky’s hair, changes his mind and grabs his hips, pulls him close, fingers dug into the dimples at the base of his spine, and Bucky laughs and says, “Alright, alright,” and kisses him for real. He makes a sound in his throat that is somewhere between a whine and a growl, a hungry sound, and Steve is just slipping his hands under his waistband when the buzzer crackles.

 “Delivery,” the voice says.

 Bucky presses his forehead against Steve’s, nuzzles his nose like a cat. “Fuckin’ delivery food,” he murmurs against his lips. He reaches into Steve’s pocket, making his breath catch, and pulls out his wallet. He manages to say, “Less cooking time means more time for other things,” as Bucky slips out the door.

 “I’m gonna get you in that chair, Rogers,” he says when he returns a moment later, laden with plastic bags. “I’m gonna throw out all the secret menus, cook something elaborate, use all the pans in the house, and _then_ we’re gonna have sex in that chair. All your worst nightmares.”

 Steve laughs. “Did the delivery guy see -” He gestures at Bucky’s hips.

 “Who cares,” Bucky says contentedly as he puts the bags on the dresser. “He was distracted by the arm. _You have a metal arm?”_ he says in a falsetto. “Yeah, kid, I do, and I can snap you in half with it. Gimme my food.”

 “Interesting that you say ‘gimme my food’ when you’ve left it over there,” Steve remarks as Bucky moves toward the bed, pulling off his shirt.

 “Mm. You know you only had six bucks in your wallet?”

 “You didn’t ask me how much I had on me before you took it.”

 “Yeah, well. You owe me. You didn’t take your pants off while I was gone?”

 “You were gone for a _minute_. And I thought we were going to _eat_.”

 “Excuses, excuses.”

 The food is cold by the time they finally get to it. Neither of them complains.

 


	2. "ghost boner"

"Hear me out."

"Mm, no, don't think I will."

"Just-"

"Mmmnoooo."

"Barnes."

"You made him fly here from DC for this?"

This last is directed at Steve, and it is _withering_. Bucky kicks the footrest back up, tips his head back, and pulls the eye mask back down.

"It's been like this all week," he says to Sam under his breath.

"I'm wearing a mask, not earmuffs."

"You're wearing a mask! An eye mask! Filled with-" Steve grabs the box off the coffee table, flails it around. "Filled with lavender... lavender-scented _glass beads_? What? Can that be right?"

Sam makes a gesture that might be considered a shrug, but a very concerned, wide-eyed, _I have no idea but you're right it doesn't sound right_ shrug.

"They are tiny glass micro-beads," says Bucky, raising his metal forefinger, "which conform to the shape of your face and the hollows of your eyes for maximum cooling and soothing effect."

Steve sighs.

"If I'm gonna live in a world where coffee is five dollars a cup, I'm gonna put glass beads on my eyes, Steven. You put it in the freezer. It feels great."

He pinches the bridge of his nose, wonders if the serum prevents stress headaches. He's starting to think it doesn't. Sam, a true hero, tries again.

"For the sake of argument," he begins. Bucky drums his fingers on the armrest, but doesn't interrupt. "For the sake of argument, let's say the chair is haunted. Don't you wanna know _by what_? Why these people got rid of it, anything? What if it's haunted by, like, a demon?"

"What if it iiisss," Bucky intones in a guttural voice, not moving an inch.

"There are other chairs, man. Probably even other free chairs, although I'm sure you have a million assassin dollars lying around somewhere-"

"I'm attached to this one now," Bucky says, wriggling deeper into the chair. "Besides, Steve and I have plans for it."

Sam looks at Steve, who mouths _Do not ask_ as exaggeratedly as he possibly can. He is not about to explain Bucky's weird chair-sex fixation. Besides, it's not going to happen.

"Be that as it may," Sam says, soldiering on despite everything, "wouldn't it be nice of you to at least look into it? To put his mind at rest?"

Bucky lifts one corner of the mask, one barely-open grayblue eye peering at Steve. "If I do, can we keep it?"

Steve sighs for a very, very, very long time.

* * *

 “This is where you found it.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

“If we don’t get murdered in here I’m gonna kill you myself, Barnes.”

The three of them are standing on the sidewalk outside the wrought-iron gates of a very large, very terrifying house.

“You didn’t notice that it’s a fucking… Dracula castle?” Sam jabs a finger into Bucky’s chest. “Y’all are supersoldiers. I didn’t bring my wings. That means whatever happens to me is on you.”

Bucky gently removes Sam’s hand. “Couple things. First of all, I was perfectly content to sit in my chair with my mask and never come back here again. Second of all, I _didn’t_ notice, because there’s a house like this every ten feet in Russia. It’s like their…” He snaps his fingers. “The coffee…”

Steve whispers, “Starbucks,” not taking his eyes off the house.

“Starbucks. And third of all, bird-boy, wings aren’t really the most useful thing to have indoors.”

Sam scowls. “My wings have _guns_. And what about Redwing? If we had Redwing, we could send him in there and this whole thing would be taken care of while we stay far away.”

“Listen, if the chair actually _is_ haunted, then the ghost isn’t even here anymore. It’s back at our place. So it shouldn’t be any problem to go in. Right, Steve?”

Bucky’s face is pure innocence, all wide-eyed and charming, like he’s not totally baiting him. Steve feels a very uncharitable urge to put him in a headlock.

“If you hadn’t saved my life more times than I can count,” he says grudgingly, and starts up the path toward the gate.

“Steve?”

He wheels around. Nat is walking toward them across the street, the morning sun gilding her hair, her head cocked to one side. “What are you doing on this side of town?”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “The train comes right by here, Natasha. It’s not exactly out of the way.”

She gives him a look.

“Well, what are _you_ doing here?” he retorts. Terrible. Steve sighs. “She lives-”

“I _live_ over here, James. You’ve been to my apartment.”

“Now I’m expected to remember the entire map of New York? Just because I’ve been to a place _once_?”

“You’ve been to my place more-” She stops, shakes her head. “It is too early in the morning for you to make me crazy, James. I’m not doing this.”

“ты любишь меня,” he says, chucking her under the chin.

“ты хочешь,” she shoots back, batting his hand away. She looks at Steve. “So. What’s up?” She looks ready for bad news, or at least news that will require her to be wearing significantly more body armor than she is currently.

“It’s nothing,” Steve says, at the exact same moment that Bucky says, “Steve’s afraid of my new chair.”

Nat makes a very dignified sound that could in no way be classified as a snort. “Wanna run that by me again?”

“I’m not afraid of the chair,” Steve says, at the exact same moment that Bucky says, “He thinks it’s haunted.”

Holding it together admirably, Nat asks, “Why do you think the chair is haunted, Steve?” in a very sincere tone.

“I don’t think the chair is haunted,” Steve says, at the exact same moment that Bucky says, “Because there was a sign that says it’s haunted.”

There is a long silence while Steve tries to murder Bucky with his eyes alone. Bucky continues to do a very good impression of someone who is not enjoying this at all. Nat inspects her fingernails, and then looks to Sam, who once again tries to save the day.

“Barnes found an ugly-ass purple chair outside this house, which he failed to notice was a fucking murder castle, and it had a sign that said it was both free and haunted. Steve isn’t _afraid_ of the chair, but we _all_ -” -a dangerous glance at Bucky- “-agreed that it wouldn’t hurt to see why they got rid of it.”

Nat pushes her sunglasses up on top of her head so they get the full force of her eyebrow raise. “You didn’t think it was just a cute sign?”

“That’s what I said,” mutters Sam, as Steve gears up once again for his monologue.

“I am not scared of the chair. I just think that if there’s a chance it’s haunted _which there is Bucky do not give me that look_ I am just _saying_ that it can’t hurt to know what it’s haunted _by_ and whether it’s _evil_ or not or do you not remember when _aliens came out of the sky_ because I’m pretty sure that’s a lot more far-fetched than _ghosts_ so I don’t know how _I’m_ the asshole here but-”

“Okay, well, first of all, I actually _don’t_ remember when aliens came out of the sky because I was _frozen_ -”

“I told you about it! In great detail!”

“The point still stands.”

“So does mine!”

Nat clears her throat.

“Okay, well, this has been… something. I’m gonna go eat my lox in peace, unless you think this is a situation that’s gonna require any actual firepower.”

“We’ve already established that Barnes is responsible for anything that happens to us, so we’re good,” says Sam brightly. “Because we’ll just be dead.”

She nods slowly, somehow not totally convinced by that.

"Well. Good luck with... all of that, then," she says, flapping her hand at the house, and jogs lightly back across the street. They watch her slip into a wrought-iron chair across a tiny round table from a muscular woman with a shaved head and a tattoo that covers her entire (very muscular) left arm. Bucky gives a low whistle. “Good for Natasha,” he says thoughtfully. “That one looks like she could actually be a match for her.”

Nat crams what looks like half a bagel into her mouth, and the three of them wince in unison. The shaved-head girl laughs and takes her hand. They sigh in relief. Still chewing, as if she can hear their thoughts, Nat extends her free hand toward them, middle finger out.

“That’s our cue,” says Steve, and they start back up the path toward the house.

The door swings open before Bucky can knock, and he drops his hand back to his side.

“Well, I don’t love that,” says Sam, and leans forward to give it a shove. It swings back into the yawning darkness of the house with a theatrical, echoing _creeeaaaakkkkkkk_.

“Of course,” Steve mutters under his breath. Bucky looks at both of them, eyebrows raised.

“We can go back anytime you want, Stevie,” he says gently, and he’s only half-teasing.

“Mm.” Steve gingerly edges a foot toward the threshold. “The thing about that is that I’m actually much more convinced that it’s haunted after seeing this house. So we can go back now, but the chair’s not staying-”

“So we’re going in!” yelps Bucky delightedly, pulling a knife out of his boot. Sam mouths _are you shitting me_ at Steve, who shrugs helplessly.

He forgets how well-trained Bucky is, how quiet and fluid, how deadly. When he’s puttering around the apartment - misting the jade plant, dancing to pop music while he makes breakfast, sneaking back into bed after he takes a shower and shaking like a dog, laughing as Steve sputters awake - he’s just Bucky. His best friend, a cocky asshole who made him ride roller coasters. The love of his life. But as he watches Bucky slink into the house ahead of him, he is struck by his easy grace, his grip on the knife loose and sure like it’s a part of his body. He was always a good soldier, a great one - but it’s different now, darker. He’s still the Winter Soldier, still an assassin. Not in his head, not where it matters, but his body. They made him into a weapon, and a weapon never forgets what it’s for. He has only been good at one thing for so long, and Steve knows he doesn’t miss it but his body does. That sense of correctness of the motions, of purpose. _Muscle memory_ isn’t deep enough; eighty years of death is breath, bone, blood memory. He still looks faintly surprised when he comes, even after all this time. That something that feels so much like life could exist, could blossom out of touch, could even happen to a body designed only to kill - it still amazes him.  Steve feels a fierce urge to hug him, press his nose into the crook of his neck and breathe him in, but he settles for brushing a hand across his back. Bucky turns and gives him a dazzling smile, teeth flashing white in the gloom of the house. _Come on_ , he mouths, and pads further inside.

Steve and Sam look at each other for a moment, and then they follow him in.

The door swings shut behind them.

“Ooo-kay, well, I _hate_ that,” Sam whispers loudly. “Steve, how are you feeling about that?”

“Not great.”

Bucky calls out, the noise startling him into a half-crouch. “Hello!” The shout echoes around the room. “Is anyone home?”

They’re all silent, waiting. Sam crosses the room and throws open the curtains, coughing and waving his hand at the cloud of dust that floats up around him. Sunlight carves the room into sharp relief: overstuffed armchairs, a vinyl-covered couch, a fireplace. There is a portrait above the fireplace, a woman with long blonde hair and a long blonde dog.

“What are those called?” Steve says, his voice dropping back toward a whisper. “The dog.”

Sam looks at him. “Is that really what’s concerning to you right now? Does it matter? They look exactly the same, and they both look like they’re staring right goddamn at us.”

“It’s an Afghan hound,” says a cool, clipped voice. All three of them wheel around.

The woman standing on the stairs is not the woman in the portrait, but they can’t be too distantly related. She has the same thin nose, the same watery green eyes. Her hair is cut into a short neat bob, shiny, a silvery-blonde helmet. She offers no further conversational input.

“Afghan hound,” Steve says at last. “What do you know.”

Her eyebrow arches almost imperceptibly.

Before he can say anything else, Sam jumps in. “We are _so_ sorry to barge in, Miss...”

She does not supply a name, and the silence is excruciating. Sam scoops his sentence up off the floor and continues. “... just… so sorry. We, ah, my friend here, my associate here, recently came into possession of an item that used to belong to you, and we wanted to… meet you,” he finishes lamely.

She tips her head. Her folded arms pull her body into a strange, jagged shape, all sharp angles and knobby bones. “What item are you referring to?”

“The chair,” Bucky says. “The purple chair.”

Her face is a blank mask. She shakes her head very slightly, as if to say no.

“The haunted chair,” Steve clarifies.

“Ah!” Her face snaps into animation, a delighted smile revealing too many teeth. “Excellent. Would you like tea?”

The kitchen is markedly less gloomy than the living room, dominated not by a gigantic dour portrait but by a gigantic cooking range. The woman fills a large copper kettle, puts it on a burner. Bucky tries not to stare and fails. Steve can practically see the thought bubble above his head reading _I bet if we just knocked out one of the bathroom walls we would definitely have the room_. He meets Bucky’s eyes, widens his own, tries to convey _Don’t even think about it_. She away from the stove just in time to catch him making this face, which he deftly turns into a yawn. She sits down at the massive, rough-hewn table in the center of the kitchen and folds her hands, pointing her chin at them in a way that suggests they should sit.

They sit.

“So,” she says, and something brushes against Steve’s knee. He yelps and shoves himself back from the table, which because he’s him means that he actually shoves the table about a foot across the floor. Two liquid dark eyes framed in long blonde hair look up at him.

“Afghan hound,” he says for the second time in his entire life. A banner day. The dog rests its chin on his knee. The woman clears her throat. “Janet,” she says.

“Nice to meet you,” Sam replies. “Sam, Bucky, Steve.”

Her eye contact does not waver as she says, “The dog’s name is Janet.”

Bucky snorts and then chokes and then goes into an explosive fit of coughing. The teakettle whistles and Steve leaps out of his chair, dislodging Janet. “I’ll do it, I’ll get it,” he says, already turning in helpless circles as he surveys the sea of cabinets around him. “If you’ll just - um -?”

She gets up without a word, walks to him and presses him back into the chair. “Sit with Janet. She likes you.”

She spends the next ten minutes arranging things, various glasses and plates clinking. Bucky is visibly restraining himself from inspecting the kitchen under the guise of helping, his metal fingers tapping wildly on the table. When she finally turns around again, she’s holding a tray laden with tiny sandwiches, cups, cookies, a little ceramic teapot with flowers on it, slices of lemon, a bowl of sugar cubes.

Bucky is beaming. “I didn’t know you meant a full tea!”

They look at him. He winks, mouths _Food Network_. Sam wilts. They are firmly in Bucky territory now, crudites and petits-fours and whatever else people like to arrange on platters.

She smiles, or Steve thinks she does, if you can call the slight twitch of the side of her mouth a smile. “It’s a little early for it,” she murmurs, setting the tray on the table, “but I thought it would be nice to have something to nibble on while we chat.”

She pours everyone a cup of tea, offering them lemons and tiny tongs for the sugar, tiny plates for the tiny food. Steve takes the cup, cradles it in his palm. It’s boiling hot, but he’s too afraid of the tiny filigreed handle to hold it any other way. Sam puts his on the tiny plate, then takes it off, then puts it back and picks up the plate. They make anguished eye contact. Bucky takes his cup delicately in his metal fingers, holding it like a tiny bird, and smiles brilliantly at her. “Thank you,” he says, and takes a sip.

 _Always was a mama’s boy_ , Steve thinks.

Tea poured, she sits back down, smoothing the front and then the back of her skirt under her as she sits. Something in the gesture says _money_ to Steve in a way that the house itself hasn’t managed to; in this moment, he is finally, acutely aware that they are in the home of a very wealthy woman.

There is a long silence, punctuated only by the sound of the little tiered cake tray rotating as Bucky turns it. The woman watches him, waits until he has chosen a tiny square, and then speaks.

“So, you’ve met my grandmother.”

All of them look at each other, expressions almost comical in their utter blankness. Bucky opens his mouth, closes it. She shows the first sign of impatience thus far, giving them only a twenty-second silence instead of the usual sixty.

“My grandmother. The spirit that haunts the armchair. I assume that’s why you’re here?”

Sam kicks Bucky under the table and mutters, “You owe me fifty bucks.”

Steve focuses very hard on breathing evenly. “I’m sorry, Miss-?”

She takes the bait this time. “Winters. Helen.”

“Ms. Winters. I think you may have misunderstood. We haven’t encountered a spirit. We were just hoping to get some more information about the chair, why you decided to get rid of it-”

“Why you said it was haunted,” interrupts Sam. “You know, normal furniture questions-”

“We just wanted a better understanding of its history before we decided to keep it.”

She flinches, just a flicker of movement, but it’s as dramatic as if she’d leapt out of her chair. “Well, you can’t _return_ it,” she says. “That is out of the question.”

Steve counts to ten before he says, “Why not?”

She shrugs. “I am rid of her. I don’t want her back. You can give it to someone else. But you must tell them it’s haunted.”

Steve opens his mouth to argue with her, but Bucky reaches across the table and takes her hand.

“Helen, please tell us about your grandmother. About why you decided to get rid of the chair.”

She sighs. “Very well.”

He is one smooth motherfucker.


	3. nice read, Velma

He waits until they are comfortably ensconced on the train, _comfortably_ being perhaps a too-optimistic adverb for the sweaty, clammy reality of it, to speak.

“So… not haunted.”

“I’m sorry, were you having a different conversation than the rest of us?”

Sam is dangerously jittery, having nervously put about six sugar cubes into his tea. Bucky shakes his head gently, smiling, an indulgent parent about to check under the bed for monsters.

“Weird noises? Clanging in the middle of the night? Strange pockets of cold throughout the house? That’s, like, ghost 101. Textbook stuff, and not even anything concrete. Like, it’s an old fucking house, I’m sure there are drafty spots, and there’s probably a boiler that doesn’t work well and it makes all sorts of moaning, wailing, clanging sounds-”

“The footrest?” Steve interjects. “You’re saying the footrest just flipping out doesn’t sound real?”

Bucky laughs out loud. “It does that now! The lever is just really sensitive.”

“ _Or_ ,” says Sam forcefully, “it is _haunted_.”

“Yeah, you’re literally proving her point-”

“It’s an old chair! Why would a ghost flip the footrest out, Steve? Is she very tired? Does she need to rest her - her spectral - fucking, I don’t know - _feet?_ Does the ghost have feet, Steve?”

“I’m not claiming to understand how it works! I’m just saying, she _told us it was haunted_ -”

“Stevie. She told us she _thinks_ it’s haunted.”

He closes his eyes, grinds his fingertips into his temples. “I just sort of assumed that would be enough to convince you to get rid of it.”

“Mm-mm.” Bucky kisses him on the shoulder. “Until I see proof of ghost, the chair stays, and bird-boy here doesn’t see a dime.”

“When did you even _make_ that bet,” Steve mutters into his hands.

“About five seconds after I saw that fuckin’ murder house,” Sam says. “You were doing deep breathing or something.”

_Great._

Bucky has to pry his face out of his hands when the train screeches into their stop.

“I thought you loved me,” Steve complains as they shuffle onto the platform.

“I do, muffin. Very much. That’s why I’m helping you work through this fear. I want you to be able to experience the joy of the chair.”

Sam groans and shoves both of them onto the escalator.

* * *

“Are you staying for dinner, bird-boy?” Bucky calls from the kitchen. Steve and Sam are slumped on the couch.

“I’m staying overnight,” Sam yells back. “It’s not, like, a _short_ flight.”

There is a series of small thumps before Bucky emerges holding a meat mallet. “Glad we’re not having chicken, then.”

Sam mimes holding up a scorecard. “Weak.”

He laughs gaily and disappears up the stairs to the roof.

Sam looks at Steve.

“How you doin’, Cap?”

Steve tips his head back and sighs, rolling his neck. “I mean. I’m not gonna take the stupid chair away from him, I’m not a _monster_ , I just… wish he didn’t like it so much.”

He turns his head toward Sam, sees a glint of something in his eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing, nothing. I’m just - nothing.”

“ _What?”_

“Well, he said he wants to see proof, right? Before he’ll get rid of it?”

Steve just looks at him.

“Nooothing,” he repeats. “Don’t worry about it.”

Bucky slams back down the stairs carrying a handful of greens.

“You’re so _loud_ for an assassin,” Sam remarks.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did I mishear you? You’re _not_ staying for a dinner of grass-fed beef steak, braised new potatoes, leek-and-watercress soup and fresh rolls? My mistake, I’ll just wrap up that extra meat for the little yappy dog downstairs-”

“Ugh, Barnes, I’m sorry, I take it back, just stop _talking_ -”

“ _You’re welcome_ ,” Bucky singsongs, leaving the room. The top-forty radio station crackles to life a second later.

“We don’t even have a downstairs neighbor,” Steve says. “You caved so quick.”

Sam shrugs. “Not worth losing out on one of Barnes’ meals, and if you tell him I said that I will deny it.”

“Fair.”

“I do have an idea about the chair problem, though.”

* * *

 Even though he’s waiting for the yell, Steve jumps like he’s been electrocuted.

“BARNES!”

Bucky’s up and out of the bed before Steve can even swing his legs over the side, rolling his left shoulder, the panels of his arm clicking. Steve bolts into the living room just a fraction of a second behind him and stops dead in his tracks.

The chair is rocking.

Not hard, not much, but a slow, measured back-and-forth that chills his blood. He grabs Bucky’s hand.

“Come on, Wilson.” Bucky’s voice is rough with sleep and irritation. “You pushed the chair.”

“I _didn’t_. I woke up because I heard something and then I saw _that_.”

“You don’t think it’s a little convenient that the first time something like this happens, you’re here?”

“You don’t sleep in the living room! It’s probably happened every night since you got the damn thing!”

“Bird-boy. Come on. I sleep like a fuckin’...” The late hour isn’t helping his word-finding. Steve wants to help, but he has no idea where Bucky’s going with this and also he’s transfixed by the creaking, gentle motion of the chair.

“The... animal. That sleeps really lightly. And it wakes up if it hears anything.”

Sam is momentarily distracted by this. “Is that a thing?”

Bucky flails his arms. “Isn’t it? You’re the animal expert here.”

“Birds. Bird expert.”

“So you’re saying there’s no bird that’s really alert and, like, hears things even in its sleep.”

“I mean-” Sam drags his hand down over his face. “Most birds sleep lightly, but I wouldn’t say they hear things in their-”

Steve clears his throat. Bucky and Sam both turn to look at him. He points mutely at the chair, which is rocking at the same speed but much more deeply, almost tipping all the way over on each swing.

“HA! I told you.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “You’re telling me if I look under that chair I’m not gonna find Redwing.”

The chair tips backward, revealing a distinct lack of Redwing in its undercarriage. Bucky takes this in stride. “So you’re doing it some other way, then.” He looks at Steve. “Did you put him up to this?”

Steve shakes his head, eyes wide. He knows he won’t be able to maintain the lie if he speaks, so he’s playing scared-silent. Which isn’t exactly hard, considering Sam gave him precisely no details about the form the “haunting” was going to take. Bucky narrows his eyes at him, looking briefly - almost _remarkably_ \- like a small, suspicious bird, and then turns back to Sam.

“All right, now-”

Something starts banging on the wall behind the couch. Sam wheels around toward the noise. Steve jumps about a foot in the air; he can’t swear to it, but he thinks Bucky flinches just slightly. When he speaks, though, his voice is rock-steady. “Going right down the list, huh?” He ticks them off on his fingers. “Sounds, creepy movement. You still need to get ‘wailing’ and ‘cold spot’ crossed off-”

The footrest of the chair flips out.

“Ah, yep, I almost forgot about the footrest, for her little ghost tail or whatever they have-”

The footrest folds back down.

The chair lurches upward, off the floor.

“What the _fuck-_ ”

“Holy-”

All three of them scramble backwards, putting distance between themselves and the chair. “What the fuck,” says Steve again. “What the fuck-”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I-” Bucky’s eyes are wide and panicked. “I don’t - Sam, I swear to God-”

Sam is shaking his head no, pressed against the wall. All three of them are clutching each other. The chair is floating about two feet off the floor, spinning lazily.

“What do we do?” Even whispering, Sam sounds terrified.

There is a long silence, the chair kind of beginning to resemble an ad on QVC, that slow, preening turn, and then Bucky speaks.

“Cordelia?”

The chair crashes to the floor with a horrific bang; Steve winces, trying not to think about their deposit, and before the _thud_ has even finished echoing off the walls Bucky says, “Okay, _fuck_ this,” and lunges toward the chair. The footrest snaps open again and he pauses, unsure, the plates in his arm whirring frantically as he tries to decide whether he’s afraid. The chair starts to rock again, faster this time, and the footrest flips in and out with increasing ferocity.

“Cordelia,” he says again. The chair slows its motion. “Cordelia Winters.”

The footrest folds down, the rocking getting shallower with every swing.

“Cordelia, are you here? Is there something you need to tell us?”

The chair stops moving.

Steve realizes he’s holding his breath.

Bucky takes a tentative step toward the chair.

A peal of laughter shatters the silence, and Steve’s heart almost explodes.

“Cordelia!” Sam says through giggles. “Cordelia, are you here! Oh my god. Oh, my god. You owe me fifty bucks, you fuck-”

“You _were_ doing it, I _knew_ it, you _asshole_ -”

“You tried to talk to it! You believed!”

Bucky opens his mouth to fight, but what comes out is an embarrassed laugh. “For like, one second, I believed.”

“That counts,” Sam chides. “You believed it was haunted, which means it could be, which means Steve wins. And _I_ win.”

He looks at Steve. “So you did know.” He’s smiling, though. He’s a little impressed, even if he doesn’t want to be. “Very long-term vengeance, Stevie.”

“You didn’t throw up, though, so I’m not sure it counts.”

Bucky knocks his shoulder against him, but gently. “Maybe that’ll happen when I get possessed.”

He winces. “So. Not getting rid of it, then.”

“Oh, no. Now I actually _want_ it to be haunted. That’s what you deserve.”

“Either way,” drawls Sam. “Pay up.”

“I’ll give you a dollar. Since I believed you for one second.”

“Listen, Barnes, if you think-”

He doesn’t finish the threat because the lights go out just then. And they go _out_. There is no light anywhere in the apartment - no smoke detector flashing, no blue glow of Steve’s laptop screen on the desk in the corner. The darkness is perfect and total; Steve holds his hand up in front of him, opens and closes it, and can’t see even the barest hint of movement.

“Sam,” he says quietly. “Can you see?”

“Goggles have night vision, but they’re in my pack.”

Bucky says, “Come on, guys. I fell for it once, you don’t have to keep-”

Steve feels for him in the dark, squeezes his arm to shut him up.

“There’s not even any light coming in from the windows, from the streetlights,” he whispers. “Something’s blacking out the windows.”

“Look, I swear to God, y’all, I was doing the other shit but I am _not_ doing this-”

“Oh, sure, bird-boy, good one, get the assassin again-”

“I’m _not_ -”

“- _yeah, he totally fell for it, he was losing it, the Winter Soldier himself-”_

“Is that supposed to be my voice, because-”

“Look, I’m not giving you the fifty bucks, so you might as well just turn the lights back-”

Steve grabs them both and hisses, “Shut. Up.”

He still can’t see a goddamn thing, but he thinks he can hear rustling coming from somewhere in the apartment. It is a quiet sound, a stealthy, sneaking sound, and it puts his hackles up.

“Is anyone here?” he yells into the dark. Nothing answers, of course. He feels Bucky shift his weight, hears the arm calibrating, and that frightens him more than anything else so far.

The rustling has stopped. Whatever is in there, it can hear them. It’s so fucking _dark_ ; how did they even _do_ this? They’re in a fucking penthouse, for God’s sake. There are windows everywhere. He turns his head from side to side, trying to find a sound, anything he can follow.

Sam’s voice comes suddenly from the center of the room. “My pack’s gone.”

“What?”

“It’s gone. It’s not here. I left it right-”

There is a thump, which he assumes is Sam kicking the couch. He hopes it’s the couch, anyway. Don’t poke the dragon, and all.

“What the fuck is going on, Steve,” murmurs Bucky very quietly and very calmly. It sounds like he’s barely moving his lips.

His body reacts before his brain even knows he’s heard a sound. His pulse skyrockets, his muscles lock in place, his grip on Bucky’s arm tightens.

“Steve,” he whispers. He hears it too.

There is a woman crying somewhere in the apartment.

The sobs - they are sobs, she is sobbing, ragged and hopeless - seem to come from every corner of the room. They get louder and then quieter, lilting dizzily, receding and then suddenly so close that he can almost feel it.

A hand touches him and he bites down on a full-on scream. “Sorry,” whispers Sam, “sorry, sorry.” They stand there, the three of them, trying to figure out what to do. The woman cries and cries.

“Cordelia?”

Steve regrets it the second it’s out of his mouth. The woman doesn’t even pause for breath; her crying just echoes around the room, doubling back on itself, a horrible chorus.

“Hey, whoever you are, this ain’t a fair fight.” Sam sounds genuinely pissed off. “At least give me back my goggles so we can _see_ you. Or are you afraid that’s all it’ll take for us to kick your ass?”

The crying softens a little bit; it gets just quiet enough that they can hear the scrape of metal on wood as something slides toward them across the floor.

“Fuuuuuuck,” mutters Sam, and from the sound of his voice he’s crouching, feeling around for what Steve already knows he’ll find. “Fuck this, fuck this, fuuuuck this-”

“Goggles?”

“Yeah.”

He hears the lenses whirring to life, hears Sam’s fingertips on his gauntlet.

“Nothing,” he says, his voice flat and disappointed. The crying is wearing on all of their nerves; he can feel Bucky bouncing on the balls of his feet, anxious, twitchy movements.   
“Can you see what’s over the windows?”

“Mmm.. no. It looks like - I don’t know, it’s weird. It looks like there just _aren’t_ any windows.”

The woman disintegrates further, her breath coming sharp and jagged, and they can hear her gasping for air as she keeps crying.

“What do you _want?_ ” Steve yells into the house. “Just _tell_ us!”

Something whickers past his face, cleaving the air, smelling faintly of something medicinal. He drops to the floor without thinking, pulling Bucky and Sam down with him, trying to cover all of them as best he can. He hears the rustling again, and then another rush of air as something moves fast above their heads. Suddenly he is aware that someone is breathing on him, on the back of his neck.

“Buck,” he whispers. “Where are you?”

The response comes from in front of him. “Here, Stevie.”

He takes a deep breath. “Sam? Will you look behind me?”

The crying woman continues to sob. He feels Sam shifting next to him on the floor, and then he says, “Nothing.”

Steve says, without moving his head at all, “Something is breathing on my neck.”

“Steve, there’s nothing back there.”

He raises his arm, waves it around behind him. He doesn’t turn, afraid to be face-to-face with the breathing. He almost feels something against his fingertips - maybe, maybe the barest brush of something that could be skin - but then it is gone, and with it the breathing.

“See? Nothing.”

Something _slams_ into the floor in the center of the room.

Near the chair.

The something makes a sound, a sort of thump-slap, and then there is a long, low shushing sound. Thump-slap. Shussshhh. Thump-slap. Shussshhh. The next thump-slap is close enough that Steve can tell what it is; it is an arm flung out, an arm limp and loose with decay, slapping onto their floor with the weight of a dead thing, then _pulling_ whatever it’s attached to, pulling it toward them.

Thump-slap. Shussshhh.

“Bucky,” he whispers out of the corner of his mouth. “Apologize to her.”

All of them are breathing quick and frantic, audible even over the sobbing woman, and something nudges at the back of Steve’s mind but the thing from the chair is getting closer to them and they have nowhere to go, their backs literally against a wall, and he squeezes Bucky’s arm and repeats, “Apologize.”

“For what?”

 _Wait a minute_ , his brain says quietly. _If she’s crying, then…_

“For not believing in her.”

_If she’s the one crying, then who-_

“Cordelia,” Bucky whispers, his voice thready with terror. “I’m sor-”

The crying stops abruptly. There is maybe half a second of blessed, blessed silence, and then-

“BOOTY BOOTY BOOTY BOOTY ROCKIN’ EVERYWHERE-”

“ _Shit_ , shit, fuck, shit, shhh-”

“BOOTY BOOTY BOOTY BOOTY-”

“Shut up shut up shut up you stupid-”

“ROCKIN’ EVERYWHERE-”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Bishop-”

“ROCKIN’ EVERYWHERE-”

“I _dropped_ it it _scared_ me-”

“ROCKIN’ EVERYWHERE-”

“Son of a _bitch_ -”

“I FOUND YOU, MS. NEW BOOTY-”

“Of all things-”

Scuffling sounds, a sharp crack. The music stops.

“God damn it, Clint.”

More scuffling sounds, farther away. Near the kitchen.

“Sam, take off the goggles.”

“What?”

“Take them off.”

All the lights come back on at once, a fraction of a second after Sam gets the goggles off.

Clint and Kate are sprawled in a very undignified heap in the corner of the living room next to a very broken iPhone. Nat is standing by the window doing something with a flat black tablet. All of them look embarrassed, but not nearly as embarrassed as Steve feels they should. He gets to his feet, realizing for the first time that he’s wearing boxer-briefs and a t-shirt. Bucky isn’t even wearing a shirt. At least Sam is wearing _pants,_ even if they do have tiny birds all over them. He folds his arms and tries to look imposing. He hopes his hair isn’t doing that thing that it does sometimes in the morning.

“Who wants to go first?”

“Oh, that’ll be Ms. New Booty,” Clint drawls, pulling Kate to her feet. “Meanwhile, I will be in the kitchen.” He turns off his hearing aids and strolls out of the room.

Nat slips the tablet into her hoodie pocket and tries to slink after him, but Bucky puts an arm out. “No, no, дорогая. This has you written all over it.”

She pouts and leans against the wall, shoving her sleeves up to her elbows. Steve looks from Kate to Nat, raises his eyebrows.

Nat sighs. “Haunted chair, Steve? What am I supposed to do? I’m only human.”

“Besides, she said it was purple.” Kate is swiping at the shattered touchscreen. “We need a chair.”

“You’re telling me America was gonna let you bring home a haunted armchair?”

“I wasn’t gonna tell her it was haunted.”

“Like hell you weren’t,” Nat says. “Like you’d lie to her.”

Kate growls at the phone, not looking up.

Nat looks back at Steve. “It was gonna be really funny, I swear. We had a whole thing planned out. We were gonna chase you up to the roof and have you throw it off.” She sighs. “We should have used my phone, though, that’s on me.”

"Like you don’t have music on your phone,” Kate grumbles. “That could have happened to anyone.”

“I would have _wiped_ the music before the _mission_.”

“Well. Hindsight.”

Clint wanders in from the kitchen, face buried in a mug of coffee. He catches Bucky’s eye and backs right back out of the room.

“How did you know it was purple?”

Kate pries her attention away from the phone, which is now gurgling quietly. “What?”

“How. Did you know. It was purple,” repeats Bucky. He’s remarkably calm for someone whose worldview has been shattered and repaired twice in the last hour.

Nat winces. “Okay, that’s… also on me.”

They wait.

“I live over there! That chair was outside for a week before you took it home, James. I saw it. I saw the sign. I may have mentioned it to Kate at some point. It seemed like the kind of thing she would like.”

“Told you,” Steve mutters. Sam gives him an evil glare.

“Aww, Cap,” says Kate, beaming at him. “You thought I would like it?”

“I did… briefly contemplate giving it to you. Sam told me not to.”

“Because she doesn’t need more to deal with! Besides, think of America.”

“America would _love_ that chair.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a life-sized picture of America loving that chair-”

“You don’t know!”

“America would hate that chair,” says Clint, walking back in with another cup of coffee. He’s carrying the pot, too, just in case. Kate gives him a look of utter betrayal. He shrugs at her. “You know I’m right.”

He looks around. “So. Have we resolved everything yet?”

That’s what finally breaks Bucky. “Have we res _olved_ \- _No,_ Barton, we haven’t _resolved_ anything, because you _idiots_ broke into our apartment to pretend a chair was haunted and _I still haven’t heard a good reason why-”_

“Steve did it too!”

“He _lives_ here, and we will _get_ to that-”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Steve murmurs, petting his arm. “It’s okay, Buck.”

Bucky makes a very aggravated snorting sound. “I gotta go wash something.” He slips out of Steve’s grasp and darts into the kitchen.

“Guys-”

There is a loud clang and the tinny spiraling sound of a dropped bowl. Steve ignores this and tries to muster an appropriately disappointed expression.

“Guys, someone could have gotten hurt. What if I’d punched one of you?”

Nat snorts.

“Okay, well, Buck could have- or Sam, if he hadn’t gotten the goggles off before the lights came on-”

“Seared retinas,” Sam says solemnly.

Too solemnly.

Steve cuts a glance at him. His arms are folded, lips pressed tightly together. His shoulders are quivering.

“Oh, _come on_ ,” Steve wails. “You knew?”

Sam bursts out laughing. “Hell, no, I didn’t know. But I can appreciate a good prank when I see one. They got us, Cap. They got us _good_.”

He dissolves into wheezy cackles, trying to reel himself in. “You told Barnes to _apologize._  To a _chair_.”

Nat is barely suppressing a smile, and Clint is hiding his own by drinking directly from the coffeepot. Kate is the only one who looks appropriately remorseful, but her gaze is focused on her smashed phone.

The adrenaline thrumming through his body dissolves all at once, and the fizziness it leaves behind overwhelms him. A wave of weird euphoria crashes over him and he starts laughing, heaving with it, holding onto Sam. “God damn it,” he says at last, straightening up. “It was good. Too good.”

“We’re a little sorry,” Clint says, “but just a little. It’s probably for the best we didn’t make it all the way to the roof. We’d’ve probably regretted that.”

“I suppose that’s the best apology we’re gonna get.” Sam wipes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

There is another, louder clang from the kitchen, and a _whoompf_ that sounds suspiciously like a ball of flame igniting. Steve tries to keep the panic out of his voice. “Buck?”

He emerges, hair tied back out of his face, holding a spatula. “There was nothing to wash,” he says darkly. “So I’m making breakfast.”

Nat sidles over to him, slips her arm around him. “So… you’re not mad anymore?”

He rolls his eyes. “Mostly not. Even though you fuckers deserve neither breakfast nor forgiveness, you will get both, because you have given me the greatest gift of all-”

He looks at Steve, a smug, ferocious grin on his face. “I _told_ you it wasn’t haunted.”

Steve points a finger at him, opens his mouth, can think of absolutely no comeback, and shuts his mouth. Bucky winks and sashays back into the kitchen.

“Clint! Bring the coffeepot back in here!”

Impossibly, Clint is now asleep on the couch. Kate punches him in the arm. “Wake up, dickhead. Go help Bucky.”

He signs something at her, faster than Steve can read, and gets to his feet. “You owe me a phone,” she yells at his back. She slumps back on the sofa, looking forlornly at the black screen. “Didn’t even get the chair, and now I got no phone.”

“But you get breakfast,” says Nat, stretching her arms above her head before offering Kate a hand. “Which, considering your music taste, is probably better than the phone.”

“Tell me you don’t like ‘Ms. New Booty’,” Kate challenges as they walk into the kitchen. “Tell me you don’t wanna dance when you hear that song.” Nat’s reply disappears into the blossoming chaos of breakfast for six.

The smell of bacon wafts into the living room. Steve looks at Sam. “Guess we got what we deserved,” he says.

Sam grins ruefully. “I thought mine was good.”

“It was.” Steve huffs a little laugh. “Theirs was just way, way better.”

“Theirs didn’t have levitation.”

“How did you do that, anyway? I thought when he said ‘Redwing’ we were hosed for sure.”

“A gentleman never tells.”

“I’m not sure that applies to haunting.”

“It applies to everything. A gentleman never tells anyone anything.”

“Are you idiots gonna come eat or did you wanna spend some more time with the ghost?”

“Funny,” Sam yells back. “Very funny. Let me come show you how funny.”

Steve stands in the living room for another moment, looking at the chair. It’s a little worse for wear - the rocking and the crashing weren’t exactly kind to it - but it looks less menacing, somehow. Sort of squashy, and almost comfortable. He looks over his shoulder toward the kitchen and steps toward it. He pushes it gently, watches it rock and then come to a stop like a normal chair. He looks at the kitchen again, hears the clink of dishes, the hum of conversation. He eases down slowly, carefully into the chair, settles his weight into it gingerly. It feels… good, actually. He sinks down a little more, leaning back just a bit. _Okay_ , he thinks. _I can see why… okay_. He’s reaching for the footrest lever, fingertips just brushing it, when Bucky lunges into the room.

“A _ha!_ ”

He bolts up out of the chair, somehow activating the footrest anyway, catching himself on it, and ends up in a very undignified sprawl, half on the chair and half on the floor. Bucky crouches down beside him, trying (and failing) not to look smug.

“I told you,” he says, and pulls him up and into a kiss.

“How long are you gonna hold onto this, do you think?”

“At least a few more days. Until I’m sure it’s really sunk in. You know.”

Steve sighs.

“It’s comfy, right?”

He sighs again, ruffling the strand of hair that’s fallen out of Bucky’s hair tie. “No comment.”

Bucky laughs, a delighted, sweet laugh that makes Steve’s heart squeeze tight and then open like a flower. He takes his other hand and they stand there next to the chair, looking at each other.

“What the fuck is _this?”_ Clint's voice bounces out of the kitchen, sounding terrified, but also excited.

Nat pops her head out of the kitchen. “Clint found the French press. And also I think the biscuits are done.”

“Ah, fuck. Well, we had a good run.” Bucky tugs on Steve’s hand. “C’mon, Rogers. Before Barton literally has a heart attack.”

“I heard that! Are you keeping the good caffeine away from me? I won’t stand for this, Barnes-”

“Yeah, yeah. Siddown, I’ll make you a cup. _One_ cup. Nat, pass the bacon.”

In the empty living room, moving so slowly that it is almost imperceptible, the chair rocks once, twice, and settles back into stillness.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They are all idiots and so am I. The banter barrel is a bottomless anomaly, which is a [mutationalfalsetto](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mutationalfalsetto)-ism and also my future epitaph. I cannot tell you how many stupid, stupid fic ideas we have come up with just by texting each other random pictures and vines like "ahaha but imagine if the garden verse" and then... it happens. Like, if you dream it, you can achieve it, friends. Also, I apologize for all of these titles because everything is just the silliest.  
> [This](https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t34.0-12/13900723_300526293633240_256044701_n.jpg?oh=1222be055d964fd14be3be41721097f3&oe=57A11E40) is the face that launched this particular ship.  
> [This](https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t34.0-12/13883913_300532866965916_566702017_n.gif?oh=7f25db232a365888cc8ef7167053d73c&oe=57A1187D) is Bucky's suspicious-bird look.  
> [This](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/8c/7a/40/8c7a40fff535aa5195a9cf6469611eba.jpg) is "I gotta go wash something".  
> As always, feedback and comments are welcome and appreciated! Thank you for being here!


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